Lady Gaga Fueling the Controversy Again

When Lady Gaga’s latest music video – for her new, incendiary “Judas” single – leaked just hours before its scheduled primetime premier, the Gaga camp immediately feigned innocence. Yet considering Lady Gaga’s track record, it seems all too likely that someone from the Gaga group leaked the video to create more hype for its official unveiling.

These kinds of fame whoring tactics are like second nature for Lady Gaga and her PR and management personnel. The press is saturated with Lady Gaga articles, and even if a number of them are less than flattering, it’s clear that Lady Gaga and her handlers follow the old adage that “any press is good press.” It seems like every day there are new Lady Gaga pictures depicting the pop superstar in any number of questionable poses, situations or stages of undress. The Lady Gaga costume department also seems bound and determined to bedeck the singer in anything and everything that might earn a headline or inspire more outrageous snapshots.

The whole Lady Gaga machine is programmed to run on shock value. Just do a quick search on Lady Gaga lyrics, videos or pictures and your ears and eyes will be assaulted. Many critics call the Lady gaudy, manufactured, and outright fake, but there’s no denying that she’s wildly popular. Like anything that inspires an immediate and strong emotional response, it seems that Lady Gaga possesses addictive properties.

Will the world ever get enough of Lady Gaga? It’s a question that the haters have been asking since her first album, The Fame, burned its way into our brains and to the top of the charts on the back of catchy but repetitive hits like “Just Dance” and “Poker Face.” Some say Lady Gaga is a pioneer, but when it comes to Lady Gaga lyrics and singles, it’s clear she’s following a carefully designed pattern. You can’t blame the lady for profiting off the masses, but one has to wonder if it would kill her to drop the Teletubby-like repetition, auto-tuning, and canned techno beats long enough to record at least one real song.

Regardless of how much you love or hate Lady Gaga, it doesn’t look like she’s going anywhere… at least for now. With a new batch of singles from her second studio album, Born This Way, currently clawing their way to the top of online, radio and video charts it’s clear she’s still got the pop market in a headlock. And if Lady Gaga videos like Judas are her new standard, then we’ll never see an end to Gaga-inspired headlines. After all, the enigmatic pop personality has made it very clear that she’ll talk or sing about anything that will get her a sound clip, including the often avoided topics of religion and politics.

Speaking of religion, while Gaga has frequently alluded to her Catholic upbringing, and has had issues with the Catholic League since releasing “Alejandro” in 2009, she’s never referenced the religion so blatantly (or controversially) as she does in her recent 5:35 homage to Judas Iscariot. Gone is the playful tone she adopted for “Telephone.” It was clear when she released the title track for Born This Way, that Lady Gaga’s new album was going to be a lot more down and dirty. Pardon the Jesus pun, but the second single off the album – Judas – drove the Lady’s darker tone home like a nail.

Lady Gaga has repeatedly waved away claims that she is pandering for camera time. Of course her many melodramatic and self-scheduled press releases seem to suggest otherwise. In her own words, though, Lady Gaga insists that her new album, Born This Way, is “something so much deeper than a wig or lipstick or a fucking meat dress.”

Quotes like these beg an obvious question: if it’s about something more, then why continue hiding behind wigs, lipstick and meat dresses?